The Universe Hates You, Loki
by TheLTrain
Summary: When he isn't fighting the Avengers, Loki has a dayjob as a children's party magician and a shitty apartment in the Bronx.
1. Chapter 1: The Horowitzes

Loki would have chosen something bigger. More grand, more stately, maybe a little less full of old people and dry rot. He would have, that is, if SHIELD hadn't managed to figure out a method of identifying and tracking the energy signature his magic produced. Therefore, magic of any sort was strictly off limits until he was actually in a fight with his brother and his brother's new super hero buddies. So that wonderful upper east side apartment with a view of Central Park was out of his price range. He needed to remain near Manhattan if he wanted to keep his eye on the Avengers, so he decided to look a little further uptown for accommodations. Eventually he hit the Bronx. It was that or the suburbs, and he wasn't about to deal with the commute. Loki settled on a wonderful little apartment building owned by Enid and Abraham Horowitz.

Loki had a very intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Horowitz household. After all, they lived in the apartment directly beside his, and the walls were very thin.

"DID YOU PAY THE BOY?"

"WHAT BOY?"

"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME, ABE. THE BOY WHO SCHLEPPED YOUR GODDAMN READING CHAIR UP THE STAIRS YESTERDAY."

"YOU MEAN PARKER?

"YOU KNOW GODDAMN WELL WHO I MEAN, ABE."

"OF COURSE I PAYED HIM, ENID. YOU WERE RIGHT THERE IN THE KITCHEN."

"I WAS BUSY MAKING YOUR GODAMMN DINNER. YOU THINK I GOT THE TIME TO MAKE SURE YOU DO EVERY LITTLE THING YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO?"

"SEE, THIS IS WHY NONE OF THE KIDS'LL TAKE THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT. YOU AND YOUR GODDAMN KVETCHING."

"IT'S NOT ME, IT'S THIS SCHLOCK BUILDING YOU DON'T TAKE CARE OF. I SAW A ROACH THE OTHER DAY. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS WOULD WANT TO RAISE A CHILD IN THIS DUMP? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO CALL THE EXTERMINATOR LIKE I KEEP TELLING YOU?"

"THERE AIN'T NO GODDAMN ROACHES. I DON'T HEAR ANY OF THE SCHMUCKS IN THIS BUILDING COMPLAINING. JUST YOU."

There _were_ roaches. Loki knew this because he was looking at two of them at that very moment. No one else, except apparently Enid, noticed them because everyone else in the building was over seventy-five and couldn't find their reading glasses most days. This was probably also why the peeling paint and the water damage was never reported or taken care of. Honestly, it was sort of a miracle the building hadn't been condemned yet.

It was incredibly difficult to get any evil plotting done while Enid and Abraham were at it. The fact that Enid always brought him some homemade knishes or latkes as an unspoken apology after she and Abraham had a particularly loud argument did help to lessen his frustration with them.

Loki fiddled with the fraying edge of his bed sheet. He needed new bed linens something awful. His current bedding had been provided by Enid when he had first moved in. She said they were family heirlooms. Loki found the neon orange price sticker from Good Will still stuck to the pillow case later that night. As time wore on, Loki had found himself thinking more of ways to earn money to replace his lavender sheets and lumpy mattress and less of ways to humiliate Thor and take his revenge on all of Asgard. This led him to start a business as a magician for children's parties. The sequined vest was too large for him and the children were sticky, but the money was good. Sometimes, the parents would even send him home with a piece of birthday cake as well as his cash payment. Once, a woman gave him the whole cake. Granted, most of it was in Loki's hair. If the boy hadn't been seven Loki might have considered recruiting him as a minion.

Loki stared at the crack in his ceiling. Well, he stared at the most apparent one. Over the Horowitzes, he could sort of make out what sounded like a gang fight somewhere outside on the street. Loki recalled the confrontation with his father when Loki had demanded the truth of his heritage and asked if he was cursed. Odin had claimed Loki was not cursed, just adopted. The universe clearly did not share this opinion.


	2. Chapter 2: The Bar Mitzvah

The building was old. The plumbing had seen better days. It stood to reason that the pressure of the water in Loki's shower would be rather low. It was so low, in fact, that washing any cleaning products out of his hair was next to impossible. So he stopped buying shampoo. Why waste money that could be going towards his new sheets on such a futile exercise? And while he was saving money, he decided he could skip getting a hair cut as well. Everyone always liked Thor's long hair, after all. Where was the harm?

So Loki was doing his best to enjoy the gentle drizzles that was his morning shower when he was interrupted by Mrs. Horowitz's shrill voice.

"HEY. YOU IN THERE? LISTEN, I MIGHT HAVE A JOB FOR YOUR LITTLE MAGICIAN BUSINESS, HONEY."

Loki had no moral qualms about shoving Mrs. Horowitz 's head into her own oven. It would be so very easy to make it look like an unfortunate accident. But it would mean the end of his knish supply, which made up the majority of his diet. He was pretty sure there was a joke about not biting the hand that feeds you in there somewhere, but he wasn't in the mood to yank it out kicking and screaming. Plus, he was desperate for cash.

"One moment! I'm not decent." He called back as jumped out of the shower. He began to put on his pants. He had been planning to put on his shirt as well, but Mrs. Horowitz was not a patient woman. She owned the goddamned building. She did what she wanted. So she took the liberty of unlocking the door herself and opening it wide enough for Mrs. Bonacci to get a good view inside Loki's apartment as she hobbled by on her way out to bingo. She tittered as he hastily zippered his fly.

"YOUR FACE LOOKS LIKE A TOMATO, HONEY. I'VE BEEN MARRIED FIFTY-SIX YEARS AND I'VE RAISED THREE BOYS. IT'S NOTHING I AIN'T SEEN." Mrs. Horowitz said. "THE REST OF YOU IS LOOKING A LITTLE PALE. REMIND ME TO BRING YOU SOME KNISHES LATER."

"Thank you, that's very kind." Loki said as he desperately groped behind him for the shirt he knew was somewhere on his bed. No luck. He didn't dare turn his back on Mrs. Horowitz. She had an unnerving habit of pinching his bottom.

"SO HONEY," Mrs. Horowitz said, "MY OLDEST SON, DAVID. I'VE TOLD YOU ABOUT HIM, RIGHT? MY SON DAVID THE CHIROPRACTOR IN MAMARONECK?"

"Yes, I do believe you've mentioned him once or twice…" It was more like sixteen, but it wasn't like Loki had been counting the mentions of David, the wildly successful chiropractor in Mamaroneck. Or of his younger brothers, Amos and Aaron who jointly owned a bagel shop in Clinton Hill that was opening a satellite shop in Bushwick.

"YEAH WELL, SO DAVID'S SON, MY GRANDSON, BENJI, IS HAVING HIS BAR MITZVAH TOMORROW NIGHT. THEY'VE GOT A WHOLE BALL ROOM RENTED OUT AT THE YACHT CLUB IN MAMARONECK. IT'S GOT THE MOST GORGEOUS VIEW OF THE OCEAN. UNLESS IT RAINS, BECAUSE THEN YOU CAN'T SEE BUPKES."

Loki had no idea what a "Bar Mitzvah" was, but he was hoping it wasn't like the other fine Jewish tradition known as "circumcision". He had had the unfortunate experience of being invited to the Horowitz's most recent grandchild's unfortunate meeting with what was known as a "mohel". For the life of him, Loki could not understand why Amos Horowitz would allow such a barbaric ritual to be performed on his newborn son. He could understand even less why Amos would choose to host the event at his parent's house since none of them seemed to get along. There had been a lot of yelling and Loki had finally confirmed his suspicions that being called a "schmuck" was in fact an insult. Loki almost regretted agreeing to attend, but bagels and schmear turned out to be some of the best things to ever happen to him. Apparently, the human race was not as horrifically backward as he had always believed. Barely.

"…SO TURNS OUT THE MAGICIAN THEY HIRED WAS JUST ARRESTED. THEY SAY IT WAS DRUGS, BUT I THINK HE WAS A PEDOPHILE. HE WAS AT RACHEL'S BAT MITZVAH TWO YEARS AGO, YOU KNOW. I SWEAR TO GOD THE WAY HE WAS LOOKING AT THOSE KIDS WAS NOT RIGHT. I ALWAYS SAID THE GUY WAS MISHUGENA."

"Oh. Well. That's unfortunate."

"IT'S ALRIGHT. DAVID GOT REIMBRSED FOR THE MONEY THEY WASTED ON HIS SORRY TUCHES. LUCKY BREAK YOU MOVED IN. SO HOW DOES $20O SOUND TO YOU?"

"That sounds fine." Loath as he was to attend another Horowitz family gathering, the last time Loki had seen anything resembling $200 was about six months ago at a bank robbery perpetrated by the Green Goblin. Loki had not even been involved. He had just been passing by, but of course none of the heroes who responded to the bank's distress call had believed him.

The next morning found Loki waiting at the back of a synagogue, resplendent in his unfortunate sequined vest, chewing on the bagel Amos and Aaron had been so thoughtful as to provide him with. While observing the proceedings, Loki realized that a Bar Mitzvah was a coming of age ceremony that he was pretty confident did not involve any more alterations to anyone's "schlong" as Mr. Horowtiz so aptly put it. Several people spoke, switching between long recitations in an incredibly guttural language Loki did not recognize, sappy recollections of Benji's childhood, and praise for his growth into a "man". As far as Loki could tell, Benji hadn't hit puberty yet, so the entire ceremony seemed a bit premature.

It wasn't until the rabbi was getting ready to send everyone out of the synagogue to attend the celebration at the yacht club that Loki realized he was being observed. A leggy brunette and a shorter blonde woman seated towards the back of the room kept turning towards him and whispering to each other. He made eye contact with the brunette as she glanced at him again and he raised an eyebrow. She turned a bit pink and swung back to her friend, whispering something into the blonde's ear between giggles.

Oh yeah. Still got it.

Loki had not been unpopular with the women of Asgard. He had perfected a sweetly non-threatening yet troubled persona when he was young. In his experience, most women couldn't resist a man who seemed outwardly tough, but was "secretly" vulnerable and open to being babied a little. He supposed it boiled down to the incredibly intoxicating feeling of having power over another person. There's nothing quite like feeling that you are an untouchable god with a servant whose dog like devotion renders them completely helpless before you. So long as they believed that they were what he held in highest regard, the women he had courted (though seduced might be a better term) were happy to spread their legs for him.

Loki had not been with anyone for a very long time, and after what was sure to be a loud, stressful Horowitz bonanza, getting laid might be the perfect stress relief.

The after party was actually worse than he had feared. The DJ was loud and obnoxious and seemed to have some sort of strange obsession with getting people to "throw their hands up in the air". By the time he was scheduled to perform, he had a pounding headache. The children were a touch older than he usually entertained, and seemed pretty unimpressed with card tricks and sleight of hand. Most of them were yawning or snickering to each other. When one of the girls threw a gaudy purple inflatable guitar at his head, Loki decided it was time the gloves came off. He was at least twenty miles from Manhattan. Some small magic might fly under the radar…

Fifteen minutes later, two boys had pink hair, a pigeon that had carelessly wandered inside from the patio had been turned into a scarf and then a snake and was still at large in the ballroom somewhere having an identity crisis, all the punch had been spiked with a little bit of whiskey, and the disappearing act had left a girl stranded on Niflheim for a couple of minutes. And no members of SHIELD or the Avengers were to be seen.

Success.

Now that he was no longer required to put up with Benji and his horde of sniveling brats, Loki retreated to the patio, which was thankfully deserted. The weather was clear, but he did not see the gorgeous view Mrs. Horowitz had raved about. It looked like every other dull, gray ocean he'd seen on Earth.

"Enjoying the view?" Loki turned to find the leggy brunette from the synagogue. As she approached him, teetering dangerously in her high-heeled shoes, he noticed that she was wearing enough makeup to make him wonder whether she wasn't wearing a flaky rubber mask.

"I am now." Under different circumstances he would have considered himself out of her league. However, as things stood, he was wearing an oversized sequined vest and playing jester to a so-called "man" whose testicles hadn't descended. He had no shame anymore.

"You really put on a show in there. I'd ask how you did the thing with the snake…" she glanced down at his pants and then arched one of her painstakingly sculpted eyebrows in what he could only assume was supposed to be a come hither sort of look, "…but I hear great magicians never reveal their secrets."

She was standing very close. Loki could smell cheap champagne and even cheaper perfume.

"Maybe if you asked nicely..." He gave her his naughtiest smirk. She smiled back and licked her lips. He wasn't certain, but he thought she might have been going for sensual with that one. Through the haze of foundation and eye shadow that was her face it was a bit difficult to tell. She reached up to pull his head towards hers, lips already beginning to pucker…

...And then she pulled her hand from his head like she'd been burned with hot oil.

"Oh my GAWD" was all she said. And then she left.

He watched her hurry away from him as quickly as her tight dress and stilettos would allow. His confusion lasted only moments before he realized the horrible truth. She must have recognized him from one of the news broadcasts about his struggles against the Avengers. Well, shit. That could ruin everything.

He chased after her. For a horrible moment he couldn't find her in the bobbing crowd that had hoisted Benji and the chair he was seated on into the air. Then he saw her ponytail disappear around a corner on the far side of the room. Weaving his way through a frankly astounding number of drunken Bar Mitzvah guests, he followed after her. If she told anyone he would just have to kill her and make it look like an accident. Maybe she could impale herself on one of her ridiculous shoes. Could one suffocate from using too much hair spray all at once? He paused outside the women's restroom

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WENT FOR HIM!" One of the women in the bathroom had incredibly poor volume control. He couldn't help himself picturing a younger Mrs. Horowoitz.

"Ohmigawd, I know, okay?" Ah. Leggy brunette located.

"I THOUGHT WE AGREED. HIS VEST IS LIKE THE MOST ATROCIOUS THING WE'VE EVER SEEN." Well, that was just rude.

"It totally is, but I mean he can't wear it all the time. He was sort of cute and I'm pretty much related to everyone else here, Gloria."

"BUT THE VEST."

"I know, but that's not the worst part!"

"WHAT COULD BE WORSE THAN SEQUINS?"

"His _hair_. Oh my gawd, it was the greasiest shit I've ever touched. If KFC got their hands on his hair they could fry every chicken on the goddamn planet."

"NO WAY. SO IT WASN'T JUST TOO MUCH PRODUCT?" All right. So she hadn't discovered his true identity. He was still dubious about letting her live though.

"It was greasy Snape hair, Gloria. I almost screwed Professor Snape. I bet he doesn't even shower. Deal breaker right there." Loki reached up and touched his hair. He grimaced. She did have a point about the abundance of grease. It probably _could_ fuel America's fast food industry.

Not so success.

He bought his new sheets that very night. He had to settle on blue, as there had been no other colors. He tried his best to ignore the fact that if he were to assume his frost giant appearance, he'd probably be about the same shade as his bedspread. They were very nice sheets though. Not that anyone else would ever know that.


End file.
